One Winter's Day
by Staggering Wood-Elf
Summary: "...and of the fate of Eluréd and Elurín no tale tells..."


A/N: So I come back from holiday brimming with ideas, raring to write, but it's 2am so I can't write anything down. Now, all my plotbunnies have deserted me and I am left with this... thing. I am most displeased with its sappy angsty nature, but it's been a month since I posted anything. I would like a word with whoever is responsible for killing my inspiration stone dead...   
I am muchly indebted to Nimloth Tindomerel for putting the idea of Dior's children into my head. I hope I haven't ripped off too many of her ideas... Check out her excellent on-going story "Thread of Hope" for another idea of their fates.   
Disclaimer: All JRRT's.   
  
**One Winter's Day**   
  
  
  
It was a cold winter morning, and the two children were walking through the wood.   
  
More than cold, the wind was bitter and felt like a thousand daggers of ice, all trying to pierce their eyes, their exposed faces and hands, and down their necks. Nor were they walking, but running in desperate fear, their flailing limbs snagging loose branches and thorns, their soft court shoes torn as they heedlessly tore through brambles and thorns, their ragged breath forming small clouds in the icy air.   
Like two little wraiths in grey they fled, giving no colour to the drained winter landscape. But for the urgency of their speed, they would be invisible against the dead tree-limbs brushed with frost. Even their faces, which should have been rosy and glowing with youth, were pale as hewn ash-wood.   
The wind rose and began to howl about the treetops, singing its bitter lament for the blood shed beneath the trees, for the fall of proud Doriath, for the unjust slaying of the kind beings that had tended the trees for so long, a lament for the lives that began beneath the starlit forests that were ended so cruelly, with bright and cold steel. The Umanyar were unarmed, not expecting the attack, taken by surprise. Even if they had not been outnumbered, they would not have stood a chance.   
And now.   
Now, all that mattered to the two fleeing children was to distance themselves from the flames, the smoke, that would burn in their memory ever after.   
They ran until they could no longer force their legs to move, and gasping, came to a stop in a narrow clearing. By now, the younger's shoes were completely torn, and his feet were bleeding. His hair was disordered and tangled with leaves and twigs, his silver circlet lost somewhere in the forest. Trusting as always, he watched his brother through tearful eyes, expecting he would be told what to do, or be brought home, or something.   
Next to him, the other elfling fared little better. He was trying to still the feeling of panic rising in his chest, the terror of being utterly lost and in terrible danger, the fear known only to children. He tried to be brave, like his father had been when he kissed his wife and children goodbye as he strode out to fight the Kinslayers, but the horrors of the day had proved too much for him, and despite his upright posture, acting as watch for the two of them, he was shivering and beginning to cry himself.   
They were Eluréd and Elurín, the little princes of Doriath, sons of Dior, but forgotten by the world that day.   
Noticing his brother's tears, the younger child began to wail again, his voice rising above the wind. Eluréd turned to him in alarm, tugging his sleeve sharply.   
"Stop that!" hissed Eluréd. "You'll be heard. We'll be found."   
"I want Amil and Ada."   
The elder child did not know how to answer. How could he answer? Not knowing what to say, he hugged him, as their mother had often done to comfort them in the past. Yet he did not have Nimloth's soothing voice, nor her gentle hands, nor her mother's intuition to always know what was wrong. He could not give the child the comfort he needed. All he could offer was the warmth of his arms, the quiet affirmations that everything would be all right.   
After about a minute he released him. Elurín's lip was trembling slightly, whether from cold or tears he could not tell, but at least he seemed to have stopped crying.   
"Where are we?"   
Eluréd looked around helplessly. The trees had always been his friends. He had climbed them, rested under their shade, gathered their fruits. In his heart he had even named them with elvish words that suited their character and temprament, or sometimes for his most beloved trees, he had made up words that sounded fair to him. Now, he was surrounded by nameless, faceless enemies, with sharp arms that scratched him and cold, damp trunks that stretched to the sky, blocking the sun. He shivered, feeling trapped and shut in by the forest of his birth.   
"We are in the woods near Father's halls."   
He tried to sound cheerful, brave, but his voice came out weak and uncertain. Elurín let out a little sob.   
"I want to go home."   
Again, Eluréd had no words. As the tall Elves with bright swords and eyes carried them away, he had seen the red splashes on the leaves underfoot, and known with a horrible certainty that in his home, his father's palace, battle had been joined and Elves had been slain. He had seen the tall, curling pillar of smoke rising from the King's Hall, heard the desperate cries of Elves falling beneath the trees in the distance as their captors laughed and cheered their leaders. His brother had been further ahead, and had not heard the cries of the dying. For that he was thankful. Somehow preserving his brother's innocence seemed important to him, for while Elurín did not know the horrible truth, he would be able to be brave, to be clever and find the way out of the woods.   
A harsh crunching of twigs and leaves startled both of them, the tread of one unused to the ways of stealth in the forests. Quickly, they hid themselves behind a tree, the younger of the two hobbling a bit from his injured foot. They lay down and covered themselves with leaves, and waited.   
The Elf that burst into the clearing was the tallest they had ever seen, yet thinner than would be expected for his build. His body was well-armoured, and his helm that dangled from his one hand - Elurín noticed this with horror and stifled a gasp - had a tall red plume, the same hue of the Elf's hair.   
"Don't move." Eluréd whispered, as quietly as he could. "He'll kill us both."   
Indeed he looked disposed towards killing, for as he came closer they noticed his armour, his hand, were spattered with blood, and a long sword lay sheathed at his belt. His gait seemed weary, and Eluréd's blood boiled for the many who had met the wrong side of his sword. Yet what struck the children most was his face - not evil, cruel or murderous, but desperate. Simply desperate. His grey eyes roamed the forest floor, but he was no match for the children of the wood, who knew everything about hiding and secrecy.   
Soon he was gone, and the children warily came out of their hiding place. Something brushed past Elurín's cheek, and he realised that it had started to snow.   
They trudged on, not knowing or caring where they were going. Sometimes one would stumble and the other would catch his arm. Each time, they rose more slowly, then carried on. Always, onward, and the cold bit like an iron snare. Elurín had tried to sing, but his voice faltered with weariness or pain. Always onward. Eluréd had heard whispered tales in his father's court of the great hardship suffered by the Noldor as they crossed the Helcaraxë on foot, of Elves simply lying down and dying of cold. He wondered how cold he would have to be before he shared their fate. Cursing himself for making no thought of navigating the forest when they first fled, he looked arouund vainly for a familiar trail, a friendly tree. How many miles had they gone? Five? Ten? Twenty? How big could the forest be, anyway? The light began to fail. Always onward, the little princes walked on, as the cold stars began to glow above and cruel night tightened her grip.   
At last, when the sky was almost pitch-black and the snow was piling up around their feet, they stopped.   
"I don't believe you know where we are going." Elurín said, through frozen lips and chattering teeth. How typical, thought Eluréd, feeling a surge of warm love for his brother, how typical that he would try and make light of things, even now. Even now all hope is lost for us. Even now we will die in the forest, and death was surely a certainty now. He had to think, tried to think, but it seemed that his mind was fogged by the cold. In truth if he had been able to call to mind any teaching on how to survive in these circumstances he would have found little, for Dior, knowing from an early age the horrors of war, refused to teach the harsh reality to his sons, preferring to dwell on music and the tongues of the Eldar.   
"Do you?" Eluréd replied, finding speech difficult for he was shivering so much.   
Elurín smiled.   
"We should lie down. It might... It might be warmer?" It was a question.   
"Yes."   
Together they half-stumbled to the ground. Eluréd unfastened his cloak - how hard such an easy task was with numb fingers! - and wrapped it around himself and his brother, making a bed from the snow.   
So they disappeared into the strange, cold world of the forest at night. They were surrounded by the strange sounds, the harsh cries of birds, the mysterious snapping of twigs. It mattered little to Elurín. All that mattered to him at that moment was the faint touch of warm breath on his cheek, melting the tears that hung there as drops of ice.   
He awoke - or did he, for he could not remember falling asleep - to a warm light. A lantern? The sun? The jewel-light father kept for himself? No, it could not be that. What, then? He felt very cold. Abstractly, he wondered why he could no longer feel the soft breath on his cheek, but the lure of the light was too strong. Maybe he saw a kindly face somewhere in the haze of light, but maybe he did not. The cold did strange things to the mind. He felt himself slipping, falling, losing awareness.   
  
Soon, he remembered nothing.   
  
**End**   
  
A/N: I wanted to make the ending open to interpretation. It is possible that they died, or were found by Elves with lanterns... I'd prefer to believe the last one. I think they've suffered enough... 


End file.
